What are School ID Solutions?
School ID Solutions are a comprehensive system that involves issuing identification cards to students, staff, faculty and visitors in an educational environment. These ID cards provide a range of functionalities, including on campus benefits, access control to specific doors or buildings, library check out and even use in the school cafeteria for cashless payments.
What Makes ID Systems Crucial for Educational Institutions?
As schools, colleges, and universities strive to provide safer and more secure learning environments, the implementation of advanced school ID systems has become paramount. These solutions, encompassing everything from barcode ID cards to RFID-enabled smart cards, provide campuses with an innovative approach to security, granting controlled access while maintaining easy identification of persons who step foot on campus. They allow for easy classification of the types of individuals within the school premises, restrict access to certain areas and increase automation. Additionally, school ID solutions can streamline administrative processes for staff to improve efficiency in their roles.
The 3 Major Components of an Effective School ID System
Faculty and Student Identification
For staff and faculty, the IDs often incorporate RFID technology to allow secure access control in addition to identification. By embedding RFID technology into the ID cards, schools can determine who has access to specific areas such as administrative buildings, staff rooms, or equipment stores. Student ID cards typically have horizontal orientation where faculty ID cards are in portrait layout. Student identification often includes color-coded features corresponding to grade levels so that staff can easily identify them. High schools have been particularly proactive in using this technology, making it easier to identify students, manage student populations, and monitor student movements.
Visitor Management
Visitor management is about managing anyone who steps onto campus that is neither student nor staff. School ID solutions must address visitor management through software applications designed to identify and grant access to authorized individuals. These solutions identify adults visiting the school, including vendors, contractors, parents attending meetings, or those authorized for on-campus work. This comprehensive approach to visitor management adds another layer of security, ensuring that every individual on campus is identifiable and authorized to be there. Visitor management software is available as cloud based applications in addition to traditional on prem installation with options for multi user login and lots of automation to streamline the process of visitors.
The Power of Visitor Screening
Upon sign-in, school visitor software can screen visitors against law enforcement databases, checking if a visitor is wanted or registered in the sex offender database. This crucial feature can help protect students and staff from potential threats, a matter of increasing importance in today’s education landscape. These background checks can be set up as an automated feature to give confidence to admin personnel and the larger community that their campus is safe from unauthorized individuals.
Security and Access Control
During the admission process or new hire orientations, schools can issue durable smart ID cards embedded with RFID technology often known as prox badges. These low frequency cards use 125 Khz and are considered legacy technology. Newer systems typically incorporate high frequency 13.56 Mhz cards that provide a more secure, encrypted solution for visitor management and access control, campus-wide. These technologies allow security departments to control who has access to specific areas and at what times, improving safety in dormitories, protecting labs with high-value equipment, and ensuring specialized research departments only allow access to those with authorized credentials.
Who Benefits from School ID Solutions?
School ID solutions are being actively sought out by a myriad of education professionals and stakeholders. This group includes:
- School Administrators: School administrators oversee the safety and smooth running of schools. They utilize school ID solutions to monitor who is on campus and control access to various areas. The software we offer educational institutions has options for cloud based or on premise management to give admin personnel maximum control and visibility of who is given access to their campus.
- IT Personnel: IT personnel manage the technological infrastructures of the school. Implementing a school ID system gives them a tool to improve security, streamline processes, and manage data more effectively. From the implementation to ongoing support, we support IT and security teams to ensure their success in working with the school end users who interact with students, staff and even parents.
- District Management: District management is tasked with ensuring safety standards across all schools within their purview. A reliable security system offers a consistent way to maintain these standards. The district often controls the budget allocated to each school and may implement minimum standards for security and identification onsite.
- Students: Students benefit by having a safer learning environment, free from unauthorized access, thereby reducing the likelihood of incidents. While students may not appreciate the responsibility of carrying their ID card, they play an important role in the accountability process to keep their community safe.
- Teachers and School Staff: Access control systems help staff by streamlining access to facilities, reducing administrative burdens, and enabling them to focus more on their core educational responsibilities. One of the common concerns at all levels of education is that teachers take on so many responsibilities for the well being of their classroom that extends beyond teaching. Through automation and electronic controls, turnkey security solutions can support the learning environment.
- Parents and Guardians: Parents gain peace of mind knowing that their children are studying in a secure environment where access is closely monitored and controlled. For working parents, this confidence allows them to get through their work day with fewer concerns from their child’s safety at school.
- Visitors: Visitors benefit from a clear and streamlined check-in process, which allows schools to maintain an open and welcoming atmosphere while ensuring security. Visitor management features like online registration, app based approval for waivers and barcode check in, keep their process efficient and secure.
- Broader School Community: Local law enforcement and emergency services also benefit from these solutions. In the event of an emergency, accurate information about who is on campus, can be invaluable. For public and private institutions, the ability to know who is on campus is essential when partnering with outside agencies.
Creating Confidence for the Future of Security in Learning Environments
In essence, new innovations in access control technology are revolutionizing campus security, making it easier to monitor and control access while maintaining a safe, secure environment for learning. As the world becomes increasingly digital, and security threats evolve, adopting such solutions has become not just beneficial, but essential for every educational institution.
Partner With ADVANTIDGE for Campus Security
For over 20 years, we have been helping schools secure their campuses through ID issuance, visitor management, access control upgrades, and multi-factor authentication.Through a consultative approach, we partner with school administrators and IT professionals, understanding their security priorities and safety goals. Contact ADVANTIDGE today to learn how you can create a secure school campus using our innovative school ID solutions.
